Model City [1] by Donna Stonecipher

It was like the young architect sitting by the sea in her Barcelona chair and looking out at the relentlessness of the horizon line, allowing its absolution to enter her body.

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It was like the architect’s body tensing up as she stares at the horizon line, the edge where the sea meets the sky and there is no compromise, an edge facing off an edge.

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It was like the architect in her Barcelona chair feeling this edge of the horizon line where there is no compromise in her body as vertigo, and being forced to lower her head.

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It was like the architect experiencing the horizon line as vertigo, and wishing she could build a vast floating city to cover the ocean with towers and spires to block out the horizon line and its absolute absolutism.

Donna Stonecipher is the author of three books of poems, most recently The Cosmopolitan (2008, winner of the National Poetry Series). A fourth, Model City, is forthcoming from Shearsman in 2015. She lives in Berlin.